"Pardoned " WWI soldiers

Long overdue, obviously, but what I find insidious about the whole thing is the insistence on proving that said "cowards" were suffering from shellshock, rather than just admitting that miltary conflict - by its very nature -is psychologically traumatic and that - FFS - there's nothing to be ashamed about admitting that there's really nowt wrong with being scared of walking into a wall of bullets.

It's the same fucked-up logic that keeps Gulf War veterans insiting that they're suffering from a particular "syndrome" when it's probably true that living in fear of being gassed to death every fucking second of the day does you and favours psychologically and emotionally.

Thoughts?

The bloke who was on the news last night was shot for cowardace after two years in the trenches.

TWO YEARS!

He was a braver man than me...

I agree with you Martin, it's long overdue. I think the last WWI veteran died in June so the government/ civil service were possibly waiting until there was no-one who could have been offended. Pleased for all the families too.

I wonder how many of those soldiers would have stayed in the trenches for so long if it hadn't been for the policy of shooting anyone who tried to leave?

Many of the kids that fought in the 1st World War were completely in the dark about what the war was about, never mind the strategy for winning it. It wasn't like the 2nd one, where everyone was pretty much behind the cause. The trenches must have been awful places - thousands of fit young men getting ill and waiting to get their turn at being shot at. There must have been some rough old tactics employed to keep people there.

They should add that to the bottom of each of the pardons - "Sorry, you did nothing wrong but we had to pretend that you did in order to prop up the whole sorry campaign".

Here about ten are still alive. But I think there is no more who was in the trenches by 1914.

To keep them in the trenches, it was quite easy. Soldiers on the front line and gendarmes on the second. Any soldier going backwards was arrested and then sentanced to death or shot at once when they were a lot. I think this method paid in every army...

Also. There is the same problem with veterans of the Gulf war of 1991. It is said that it comes from poisoning : by medecine (experimental pills designed to make you awaken longer) and by poisoned waters...

(The Good Doctor) Martin Fradley wrote: Long overdue, obviously, but what I find insidious about the whole thing is the insistence on proving that said "cowards" were suffering from shellshock, rather than just admitting that miltary conflict - by its very nature -is psychologically traumatic and that - FFS - there's nothing to be ashamed about admitting that there's really nowt wrong with being scared of walking into a wall of bullets.

It's the same fucked-up logic that keeps Gulf War veterans insiting that they're suffering from a particular "syndrome" when it's probably true that living in fear of being gassed to death every fucking second of the day does you and favours psychologically and emotionally.

Thoughts?

I don't have this news over here, can you post a link?

JHC

choose a proper channel :)

Diamond White wrote: I wonder how many of those soldiers would have stayed in the trenches for so long if it hadn't been for the policy of shooting anyone who tried to leave?

Many of the kids that fought in the 1st World War were completely in the dark about what the war was about, never mind the strategy for winning it. It wasn't like the 2nd one, where everyone was pretty much behind the cause. The trenches must have been awful places - thousands of fit young men getting ill and waiting to get their turn at being shot at. There must have been some rough old tactics employed to keep people there.

They should add that to the bottom of each of the pardons - "Sorry, you did nothing wrong but we had to pretend that you did in order to prop up the whole sorry campaign".

They would have stayed...the way the recruiting was done in Pals' Battallions they'd have felt like they were letting their mates down if they'd deserted.

Philip Collins wrote:

Diamond White wrote: I wonder how many of those soldiers would have stayed in the trenches for so long if it hadn't been for the policy of shooting anyone who tried to leave?

Many of the kids that fought in the 1st World War were completely in the dark about what the war was about, never mind the strategy for winning it. It wasn't like the 2nd one, where everyone was pretty much behind the cause. The trenches must have been awful places - thousands of fit young men getting ill and waiting to get their turn at being shot at. There must have been some rough old tactics employed to keep people there.

They should add that to the bottom of each of the pardons - "Sorry, you did nothing wrong but we had to pretend that you did in order to prop up the whole sorry campaign".

They would have stayed...the way the recruiting was done in Pals' Battallions they'd have felt like they were letting their mates down if they'd deserted.

Another thing to note is that this was trench warfare. Being scared during a hail of bullets and mortars is always present. It takes only one to run and it can cause disharmony amoung the troops and could cause many more to run. That can end up a disaster for that side and can actually kill more troops than if it was handled harshly then.
A good movie to see how this takes affect is "When Trumpets Fade", a Showtime movie that's out on DVD. Excellent war movie. I'm not saying that execution is "right" and acceptable, but sometimes drastic times call for drastic measures. Today's warfare is different and this type of execution is no longer needed.

JHC

just goes to show that politicians where just a bunch of cunts back then as they are now. although conscription was the order of the day , most where encouraged to sign up for king,country and empire. which they did in their droves,but you see no-one told them about the mud,the lack of food or sanitation,poison gas,and almost certanty of death. oh no it was a great adventure,so they was led to believe. as in any war i suppose.

to compare the conduct of warfare from the 1st world war to today is nonsense really,to be in a trench up to your bollocks in freezing cold water,lousy food,rubish eqpt,shot at and bombed every day,i could go on,and for years not weeks. whoever it was that sanctioned the shooting of these men as a policy, well i hope they died in shame.

desperate times may well call for desperate measures but instead of shooting your own troops pluck up the bottle to pick up a gun and get in the fucking trench with them, ah but you wont do that will you mr politician oh no. maybe its because your the coward.

No-one in 1914 (including the as-usual short-sighted politicians) thought the war would last past Christmas, much less four years of slaughter and futility (until the Americans came in and reinvigorated the Western Front). No one was prepared for the carnage, and psychologically, there was nothing from history or recent memory to prepare the troops for what eventually occured. So I think it was in the best interest of keeping morale up to execute deserters, however distasteful it may have been on a personal level (and with the full understanding that this sentiment can be little comfort to the families of those executed). When you've got a war to win, everyone (well, except the generals who continually order stupid and pointless offensives) are expendable.

That being said, I don't think it's morally acceptable to do so. Especially if (as was done in the French army, if Paths of Glory is to be believed) the soldiers executed were picked at random, with no evidence that they themselves were deserters but simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. Trench warfare was (and continues to be, where practiced) a brutal enviroment, and took its toll on the young men on both sides. Yeah, there was the danger of widespread desertion to consider (something that came to pass in Russia when the Soviets stormed the Romanovs). But from a moral standpoint, there's no way to justify it.

So I'm glad that the soldiers' families finally got the pardons, though I think it's telling that it took this long for that to become acceptable amongst those in charge. More than any other conflict, the First World War was a waste of youth and promise, and this is but a small step towards redeeming that. Small, but a start.

about time i say. still the command feared that soldiers who disobeyed orders may actually refuse to fight full stop and make peace with their enemy. this was well demonstrated one Christmas when gifts were exchanged and soccer was played across the trenches.

NOOLigan wrote: about time i say. still the command feared that soldiers who disobeyed orders may actually refuse to fight full stop and make peace with their enemy. this was well demonstrated one Christmas when gifts were exchanged and soccer was played across the trenches.

Much of what Tabsy stated is so true. Though you are right that the command worried about orders being disobeyed, I don't think it was a worry that peace would ensue.

One thing to mention in all warfare is that there are surfaces and gaps. Surfaces are the strengths of the enemy, gaps are the weakness. Warfare is a "game" in which each tries to attack the gaps and avoid the surfaces. This being known, the gaps, when found are immediately strengthened. So warfare is a fluid enviroment in which everything is evolving and changing.

That being said, trench warfare required those to "hold the line". If one deserted, which caused a few more to desert, there would be a gap in the line. The enemy would exploit this gap it and could cause for many men's deaths and possibly loosing ground, possibly losing the battle, and possibly the war.

The reason it was seen as morally "ok" at the time, was that the death of one would save the lives of many, and also keep the objective. It also, like Tabsy noted, kept up morale. Not because men enjoyed seeing deaths of their comrades, but desertionary thoughts need to be dealt with quickly as they can spread through a unit like wildfire; which inevitably could get many men killed, etc.

On the moral issue, it's hard to say, as the moral line is definately blurred in war. Though I am strongly against the use the Russians had, where they mowed down their people like crazy, or as Tabsy mentioned about the French randomly choosing people.

But I don't think commanders are worried that peace might happen.

JHC

the best film about WWI that shows the horror in the trenches and switches almost instantly from innocence and humour to terrifying fear is gallipoli. everytime i watch it i can barely stand the final scene. when i went to the gallipoli national battlefield in 1995 it was by far the most moving experience i've ever had (worse than dachau or ground zero). the trenches are still there, along with thousands of gravestones, almost forgotten with the passage of time.

i think about what i would have done if i were an ANZAC soldier at the time, knowing that i was facing almost certain death if i went over the trenches. i don't know if i could do it; i don't know how anyone did it. sitting in the trench would have been enough to develop everlasting emotional scars--shellshock without the shelling, if you will.

AgentWood wrote: the best film about WWI that shows the horror in the trenches and switches almost instantly from innocence and humour to terrifying fear is gallipoli. everytime i watch it i can barely stand the final scene. when i went to the gallipoli national battlefield in 1995 it was by far the most moving experience i've ever had (worse than dachau or ground zero). the trenches are still there, along with thousands of gravestones, almost forgotten with the passage of time.

i think about what i would have done if i were an ANZAC soldier at the time, knowing that i was facing almost certain death if i went over the trenches. i don't know if i could do it; i don't know how anyone did it. sitting in the trench would have been enough to develop everlasting emotional scars--shellshock without the shelling, if you will.

Good choice on the movie. Glad we have moved away from trench warfare. I too, wonder how i would act under such a hailstorm of rounds, as it is much different today.

JHC

68Pontiac wrote:

(The Good Doctor) Martin Fradley wrote: Long overdue, obviously, but what I find insidious about the whole thing is the insistence on proving that said "cowards" were suffering from shellshock, rather than just admitting that miltary conflict - by its very nature -is psychologically traumatic and that - FFS - there's nothing to be ashamed about admitting that there's really nowt wrong with being scared of walking into a wall of bullets.

It's the same fucked-up logic that keeps Gulf War veterans insiting that they're suffering from a particular "syndrome" when it's probably true that living in fear of being gassed to death every fucking second of the day does you and favours psychologically and emotionally.

Thoughts?

I don't have this news over here, can you post a link?

JHC

It's not like you're completely forced to watch a certain channel over there, or is it? Even if you didn't get certain news from certain channels, you could still get your news online, if you choose decent places to browse. Mind you, this isn't an insult. It's just that even in Japan, in my house, I don't have satellite or cable, but I can get my news from the BBC via the Internet. Yeah, it's an English company, yet I think they do a fantastic job on things within the UK, and also a superb job on world events as well. I also like Japan's NHK (sort of the Japanese equivalent to the BBC) as well. CNN International is somewhat OK, but I've seen some other news agencies' sites, and I'm appalled at the dearth of and/or bias regarding things going on outside of the US.

fuckinell. this threads still near the top of the pile.

i had a man who fought in WW1, come through me while i was in bed at night, he was a distant family member my great uncle -or something like that. i experienced what he did in a trench like setting. i cried so hard, it was disturbing , he told me that he felt betrayed by his own will, and found that when he was killed sudenly , he didnt release fully out of his body when he died , i had the feeling of being stuck in someplace that was quite alien and dark,in the conciousness aspect of things,

after this i had survival fears for a while, i had a feeling like being on earth and life in general was not safe, and i was quite sick with fear, i know what betrayal of your own will feels like , i do it alot ..following what others think is the normal method of going about life in general, and not following your own way and your own truth, i can see how fighting someone elses war would have the same effect, if i dont have a handle on my will and freedom of will it really fucks me up bad... i related to this young man

you wanna cut down on those night time cheese butties.

krisna wrote: i had a man who fought in WW1, come through me while i was in bed at night, he was a distant family member my great uncle -or something like that. i experienced what he did in a trench like setting. i cried so hard, it was disturbing , he told me that he felt betrayed by his own will, and found that when he was killed sudenly , he didnt release fully out of his body when he died , i had the feeling of being stuck in someplace that was quite alien and dark,in the conciousness aspect of things,

after this i had survival fears for a while, i had a feeling like being on earth and life in general was not safe, and i was quite sick with fear, i know what betrayal of your own will feels like , i do it alot ..following what others think is the normal method of going about life in general, and not following your own way and your own truth, i can see how fighting someone elses war would have the same effect, if i dont have a handle on my will and freedom of will it really fucks me up bad... i related to this young man

WTF?

krisna wrote: i had a man who fought in WW1, come through me

How many viagra pills did he swallow?

im phychic . i see dead people, and i certainly know you all.... phychicly i can read the mind and the continum of your evolutionary path to complete reapsorption into pure conciousness. no fucking kiding. we are all of the same energy were physics ,differing frequencies and on a conciousness evolutionary path that is inevitable. its the concrete mind or lower mind that we spend most of our conciuous attention in as well as the astral plane. this is where man is at. mostly. dont judge my post or its content, i actualy have great insight into a man who went to war. its hard to put it into a lineal sense . but i tried and failed, i was talking about restitution and the auric bodies, the shock fucks it all up and you dont really have awareness to know you are dead or not. you are stuck between worlds or dimensions, it is so teribly disturbing that you probably wont ever experience it your self.

krisna wrote: im phychic

i would suggest you are actually psychotic...

yes it sounds very fucked up.. yes yes

could kill for some cheese though bro

no completly sane. i guess this is a thing that you can only explain in person and even if that doesnt work a widening of perception , which you canot force on any body, unlike war

just dont be cruel to me ..just leave it ,...please. ive made a complet ass of myself. and blah blah

krisna wrote: yes it sounds very fucked up.. yes yes

could kill for some cheese though bro

stay off the drugs, or keep taking them. whatever makes you sane.

well phychotic is usually some one who would inflict harm. and phychosis is something else ,, its actually when a person gets stuck in the higher levels of their auric field in form of conciousness and doesnt have the lower field levels intact to make ..aparent sense of things. i do make perfect callculated sense of all things. you could say vicent van gough was phychotic..he was at times. ,, it didnt change his nature of his soul..and he didnt harm anyone, he was a man of good will. people just judged him like you are doing to me. well what do you know about mental illness i ask. you know how to say some one is phychotic, but do you know anything about phychiatric disorders.

im tired of this shite sorry all for my crap, hey scottland is a lovely place my family lived there back in the mid 1800's, thomsons and proud to this day .he he

krisna wrote: well phychotic is usually some one who would inflict harm. and phychosis is something else ,, its actually when a person gets stuck in the higher levels of their auric field in form of conciousness and doesnt have the lower field levels intact to make ..aparent sense of things. i do make perfect callculated sense of all things. you could say vicent van gough was phychotic..he was at times. ,, it didnt change his nature of his soul..and he didnt harm anyone, he was a man of good will. people just judged him like you are doing to me. well what do you know about mental illness i ask. you know how to say some one is phychotic, but do you know anything about phychiatric disorders.

im tired of this shite sorry all for my crap, hey scottland is a lovely place my family lived there back in the mid 1800's, thomsons and proud to this day .he he

vicent van gough engaged in self harm.

well i do believe that there's more between heaven and earth than we know and that dreams can be a conduit to reality. believe it or not but i did have a few strange experiences this past year myself.

yes it has been the bain of my life, lost souls and the such.

what i would describe as phychotic in common terms is one of those women who although they breakup with their boyfriend they still say that they love them, manipulative weird shit, i have female friends that have phychotic-like mood swings, and they say mean indirect things to manipulate . or they are really possesive and naging i am actually very normal,im really laid back and a bit of an eccentric i must admit, sure my creative intellegence comes off as mental. and i do play the crazy part else where in this forum, but i was trying to be serious in this thread. it does hurt the feelings a bit,

taking a quantum leap in physics, is quite hard to grasp or understand, i think that leap of perception also holds the key to the meaning of life.. too hard to explain

well im going for a small holiday with three of my friends, they loooove my eccentric crap, they have been there for me for ever, i love them, we are going to the coromandel on the east coast, and im going to have a winter swim !! yay

your kinda getting what i mean aye nooligan, i can tell

(The Good Doctor) Martin Fradley wrote: Long overdue, obviously, but what I find insidious about the whole thing is the insistence on proving that said "cowards" were suffering from shellshock, rather than just admitting that miltary conflict - by its very nature -is psychologically traumatic and that - FFS - there's nothing to be ashamed about admitting that there's really nowt wrong with being scared of walking into a wall of bullets.

It's the same fucked-up logic that keeps Gulf War veterans insiting that they're suffering from a particular "syndrome" when it's probably true that living in fear of being gassed to death every fucking second of the day does you and favours psychologically and emotionally.

Thoughts?

I'm very very cynical as to why the are doing this _now_, when most of the loved ones of those who were shot are themselves long gone. Its surely way too late to help those who needed it, to clear the 'shame' of having a parent or husband shot for cowadice...now it just smacks of cheap popularity grabbing by politicians and a bit of icky Di-style sentimentality by the rest of us.

Anyway, they shouldn't just pardon them they should go the whole hog and give them all medals - they were the sensible ones, if the entire British army had deserted on day one the world in general and this country would have ended up a much better place (no bankrupcy under the strain of two world wars for Britain, no Nazis for Germany, no Holocaust...). Come to that, if only my drunken fool of a great-grandad hadn't decided it would be a good idea to join up, he wouldn't have gotten shot at Ypers and my grandma's life would have been much better... I'm not saying war is always wrong, but I find it hard to see anything good came of Britain's involvement in that particular war.

PS I think its entirely possible gulf war veterans ARE suffering from a physical ailment. It's a bit arrogant to assume otherwise, given how little we actually know about the human body.

AgentWood wrote: the best film about WWI that shows the horror in the trenches and switches almost instantly from innocence and humour to terrifying fear is gallipoli. everytime i watch it i can barely stand the final scene. when i went to the gallipoli national battlefield in 1995 it was by far the most moving experience i've ever had (worse than dachau or ground zero). the trenches are still there, along with thousands of gravestones, almost forgotten with the passage of time.

i think about what i would have done if i were an ANZAC soldier at the time, knowing that i was facing almost certain death if i went over the trenches. i don't know if i could do it; i don't know how anyone did it. sitting in the trench would have been enough to develop everlasting emotional scars--shellshock without the shelling, if you will.

Um, yes, but doesn't it have Mel Gibson in it :barf:

I refuse to watch anything featuring that mad ultra-catholic anti-semitic Brit-hating sexist tosspot.

Unless you are being smart-arse and referring to the later Turkish film? (that I've just found on google, never having heard of before, but thought I'd talk as if I knew about it all along to try and look more culturally aware than I am - doing a google)

Somewhere in France, there is a monument - and I think it is the only one so far, for the remembrance of all the ones who acted like this during this war.

I have to check when it has been built... but this is nothing new.

Jiphy wrote: Somewhere in France, there is a monument - and I think it is the only one so far, for the remembrance of all the ones who acted like this during this war.

I have to check when it has been built... but this is nothing new.

Yup, it was on the news the other day. It is in a cemetery somewhere and is a white statue of a man blindfolded, waiting to be shot by firing squad.

I have not found the one I was talking about, nor Burt's...

There are about 10 monuments built in the 20's through the country (when you think that every single village has its own, that is not much)

Here are the two most famous :

This is the one, Jiphy:

404 error wrote:

AgentWood wrote: the best film about WWI that shows the horror in the trenches and switches almost instantly from innocence and humour to terrifying fear is gallipoli. everytime i watch it i can barely stand the final scene. when i went to the gallipoli national battlefield in 1995 it was by far the most moving experience i've ever had (worse than dachau or ground zero). the trenches are still there, along with thousands of gravestones, almost forgotten with the passage of time.

i think about what i would have done if i were an ANZAC soldier at the time, knowing that i was facing almost certain death if i went over the trenches. i don't know if i could do it; i don't know how anyone did it. sitting in the trench would have been enough to develop everlasting emotional scars--shellshock without the shelling, if you will.

Um, yes, but doesn't it have Mel Gibson in it :barf:

I refuse to watch anything featuring that mad ultra-catholic anti-semitic Brit-hating sexist tosspot.

Unless you are being smart-arse and referring to the later Turkish film? (that I've just found on google, never having heard of before, but thought I'd talk as if I knew about it all along to try and look more culturally aware than I am - doing a google)

"Doing a google" is the way ALL the smart-arses on here manage to be such annoying smart-arses!

404 error wrote:

Um, yes, but doesn't it have Mel Gibson in it :barf:

I refuse to watch anything featuring that mad ultra-catholic anti-semitic Brit-hating sexist tosspot.

mel gibson or not, it's still a damn good film. i mean, i despise adolf hitler but that doesn't mean i'm not impressed with triumph of the will.

Burt Reynolds wrote:

Jiphy wrote: Somewhere in France, there is a monument - and I think it is the only one so far, for the remembrance of all the ones who acted like this during this war.

I have to check when it has been built... but this is nothing new.

Yup, it was on the news the other day. It is in a cemetery somewhere and is a white statue of a man blindfolded, waiting to be shot by firing squad.

I agree that the pardon is in order, but statues and monuments? I think that's a bit unnecissary.

JHC

Well, I think it's necessary to remember the men remembered unfairly as cowards as much as the men who died under enemy bullets.

68Pontiac wrote: I agree that the pardon is in order, but statues and monuments? I think that's a bit unnecissary.

JHC

Well, I think it is necessary. People had no choice. They had to go to the trenches, they were not volunteers. Every single family had at least someone killed within these four years of complete madness.

And it was not a political will. Veterans, by the beginning of the twenties, asked the authorities that their brothers in arms who were killed by our own army had their own munuments because they were all in the same shit.

And if the decision was up to me, even civilians should get their monuments. I do not understand why the soldiers are the only ones to deserve monuments.

If you are to go to France, go in the East. You will see all these cementeries... It is scareful to death. And even if most of the battlefields look like peaceful fields, you can feel the souls of the ones who died there... French, British, Germans, Russians, overseas poor people brought here by force and Americans... If you go there and feel nothing, I wonder how much humanity is within you.

Burt Reynolds wrote: This is the one, Jiphy:

Having a look at this picture Burt, I think that it is a British monument. The veterans wear berets the other side.

Must be somewhere by the Somme.

Jiphy wrote:

If you are to go to France, go in the East. You will see all these cementeries... It is scareful to death. And even if most of the battlefields look like peaceful fields, you can feel the souls of the ones who died there... French, British, Germans, Russians, overseas poor people brought here by force and Americans... If you go there and feel nothing, I wonder how much humanity is within you.

very well put. I've been to a few cemetaries in Belgium, pretty moving stuff.

Shellshock was woeful ignored, good to see it's historical effects being acknowledged now.

Gulf War Syndrome; Pretty obvious why this occurred- They fed us (I was there) a massive range of vaccines (some experimental) and gave us daily nervous system stimulant tablets (to protect against nerve agents). This overstimulation of the nervous and immune system has resulted in a range of nervous and immune system disorders in some people- Gulf War Syndrome.

Craig W wrote: Shellshock was woeful ignored, good to see it's historical effects being acknowledged now.

Thank you for the acknowledgement, CW!

Jiphy wrote:

68Pontiac wrote: I agree that the pardon is in order, but statues and monuments? I think that's a bit unnecissary.

JHC

Well, I think it is necessary. People had no choice. They had to go to the trenches, they were not volunteers. Every single family had at least someone killed within these four years of complete madness.

And it was not a political will. Veterans, by the beginning of the twenties, asked the authorities that their brothers in arms who were killed by our own army had their own munuments because they were all in the same shit.

And if the decision was up to me, even civilians should get their monuments. I do not understand why the soldiers are the only ones to deserve monuments.

If you are to go to France, go in the East. You will see all these cementeries... It is scareful to death. And even if most of the battlefields look like peaceful fields, you can feel the souls of the ones who died there... French, British, Germans, Russians, overseas poor people brought here by force and Americans... If you go there and feel nothing, I wonder how much humanity is within you.

I see your point and it is well taken. My point was that if they were pardoned then they automatically deserve place within the war memorials already in place. I suppose they could get their own memorial, but if every group of people got seperate memorials we might have more memorials than people on this earth.

JHC